wake me up when its all over
by TuesdayTerrible
Summary: "I wonder whats worse, a catastrophic end, or an opportunity that never happened." [Or Penny and Sheldon, falling apart together. ]


_A/N: This is probably not for the weak of heart. But it had to be written to keep the angst from crushing me. Because lets face it, life is just so cruel sometimes isnt it? Reviews are always appreciated. _

* * *

_so wake me up when its all over_  
_when im wiser and im older_  
_all this time i was finding myself_  
_and i didnt know i was lost_

.

When he was younger, before he understood his intelligence and how it trumped the neighbor kids, his siblings, and his parents, he wanted to be a doctor. He became a doctor, just not the one he had thought he would be.

It's the first time in 28 years, he's regretted his decision.

.

He shuts his door at 8:13 to begin his descent down the stairs, laundry basket on hip when he turns to hear the door across the hall close as well. He is delighted to find Penny joining him on Laundry Night, but the joy is ceased as he looks at her pale figure- her laundry basket mirroring his and somehow hardly in her grasp.

"Penny." he says his voice scolding, "You dont look very well."

"Geez, thanks." she says tucking a piece of straggly blonde hair behind her ears. Her sweatpants and tanktop seem to hang off of her in a way they never seemed to before. It just occurs to him that she seems to have lost an unnatural amount of weight along with the fact he was almost certain that she was pale- when he tells her so- she says its the artificial lighting and hes being ridiculous.

He scowls at her, before beginning his descent down the stairs with her by his side.

"Penny, Im not sure why I feel compelled to tell you this." His voice is calm despite his anxious turmoil from expressing his inner feelings.

"But I find that I enjoy laundry night the best when you join me." He pauses when he sees they are no longer in synch and that Penny has in fact stopped moving. He turns his attention to her pausing just two steps below her. It's at that moment, her laundry falls to the floor and she collapses onto the stairs.

The action alone sends his clothes spewing all over the stairwell, in a mixture of hers, in a what could have been a very beautiful thing. His adrenaline is pumping as he caresses her in his arms, thumbs shakingly looking for a pulse, looking for a reason he doesnt have an answer too.

.

"What makes you want to be a doctor anyway?" His brother scuffs kicking a rock with the toe of his beat up sneaker. "You dont like touching people. How are you going to be a doctor if you cant touch people?"

"I want to make a difference." He responded non-chalantly, " And I want to get out of here."

His blue eyes find the sky, and his older brother mutters something, and if it werent for his superior hearing he would have missed it.

"Oh youll get out of here Shelly, but it aint gonna make a difference."

.

It's cancer.

Spindle-cell Sarcoma.

Sheldon feels like he should have more knowledge on cancer than he has. He knows it is the growth and rapid division of abnormal cells. He finds himself knowing significantly less than what he's comfortable with and from how the doctors are hazardously pumping drugs and IV's into Penny. He has the feeling he doesnt have enough time.

It unnerves him to the bone as he watches the only woman who's stood up to him, for him, and loved him in a way that he reciprocates more than he should. He feels ill as he greets Penny's father with a warm handshake and tells them the very little he knows.

Bernadette, Howard and Raj come to join him at the hospital. Amy is away in London, and Leonard is attempting to win over Priya in India, though voicemails had been left- and Sheldon assumed flights would be booked as soon as they received the information.

Everyone is teary, and he just cant find it in him to be. He has an eidetic memory and he cant find a memory that compares to the pain he is experiencing right now. It is Bernadette that excuses herself from her husband and gently grasps Sheldon's wrist. He can not take his eyes away from her room, while they are forced into the hallway to allow her parents the privacy with her and the doctor.

"She can still come back from this Sheldon. Penny's tough."

"Of course she's tough." he says and for whatever reason Bernadette's appearance is slightly distorted. She smiles sadly up at him, and he cant figure out a reason why she would be looking at him that way.

Wyatt excuses himself from the room, before looking at the group of them, emotionally worn and physically exhausted. His wife having left a few moments before and walking past the group as if they were strangers to her grief.

"She's asking to speak to Sheldon before she goes to bed." Wyatt says turning his attention towards Sheldon before looking towards the other three. "The rest of ya will have to wait until after her surgury tomorrow morning."

.

He found as he got a little older, he hated more than just germs. He hated people. He hated when they couldnt keep up with him, and when they mocked him for not being able to keep up with them. He found a type of resentment to harbor with his new found intellect and found comfort in studying the universe, and the bigger picture if you will.

The universe and him were a pair. To many things to name. To many possibilities to conquer. He couldnt think of a single souls life who was worth saving (besides his mee-maw, assuming human-beings even had a soul to begin with) when death was inevitable anyway.

.

"Sheldon" Penny coos, and her voice sound sweet and tired, her eyes vacant and dull. She looks sick and the urge to sing her soft kitty has never been stronger than now.

"Penny." he says curtly standing stiffly at the foot of her bed, his throat is painstakingly sore for no reaosn he can think of, and his chest is collapsing at the pain he is suppressing.

"I ..." she breathes in funny, as if talking is to much effort and he almost begs her not to continue. " I enjoy laundry night with you too."

His resolves cracks and he robotically finds himself sitting on the hospital bed at her side. His limbs are shaking with nerve as he takes a seat by her side, his hands clasping hers in an attempt at comfort- or an impulse to keep them from shaking any further he isnt sure. Social concepts and emotional distress have almost always alluded him.

"Soft kitty...warm kitty...little ball of fur..."

The machines soft beeping has caught his attention, but his eyes are set on her closed ones and her soft, but uneven breathing.

"Happy kitty...sleepy kitty...purr purr purr."

It isnt until he lets her hands go, many minutes later, does he realize he had been crying.

.

"You speak like you are fond of this girl, Moonpie."

"How so Mee-maw? She is the most hard-headed person Ive had to deal with on a daily basis."

"You deal with her dont you?"

"Yes but meerly because Leonard..."

"Is Leonard the reason you do your laundry with her every Saturday at 8:15?"

"I do my laundry regardless of..."

"But.."

"But I prefer to do it with Penny."

"So you are fond of this girl?"

"I suppose so."

.

Leonard and Amy our in the waiting rooms of the hospital the next morning, they have tired distraught eyes and Sheldon does not know how to comfort them. He does not know how to deal with the things inside him that he's almost positive our somehow putting some strain on his internal organs. So he swallows and directs them with a nod of his head to Howard, Bernadette and Raj.

He only knows how to handle it but not handling it, and the only way to do that is to be alone.

He runs his hand over his face and is desperate for a moment to speak with Penny. He wants to talk about their conversation their last successful laundry night. He wants to talk to about multiple universes again. He wants to hear her theories rather there's evidence or not. He wants to hear her dreams again, and the things she care about. He knows them all by heart, but his eidetic memory does nothing compared to the sound of her voice. It does nothing to the fear in his heart, that right now, she's dying on that table- and could very well die on that table.

Leonard takes a seat next to him, face sagging, tears staining his cheeks as he lays a small hand on his shoulder.

"Sheldon..." he says softly. "You dont...have to go through this alone ya know? We are all..." he swallows trying to regain some of his composure in his attempts to console his room-mate and best friend. "We are all...hurting. Theres nothing we can do."

He knows Leonard is attempting to console him, and somehow that only fuels his anger- and he doesnt have the energy to cap his emotions as he shrugs him off angrily and rises to a stand.

"No. YOU dont have the means to do anything!" his voice is loud and angry and he cant control the sheer rage that is coursing through his veins.

"YOU are an experimental physicist. **I** have an IQ of 187There's no reason that I couldnt have come up with a way to fix this! No reason I shouldnt have seen a SIGN!"

.

"Hey Sheldon you believe in multiple universes- and please dont go on to define all the different theories, just a yes or no." Penny said as she folded her now clean shirt and set it in her laundry basket.

He takes note of her shaking hands and pale expression, the way she moves slower as if movings painful. He assumes its from working at the cheese-cake factory as she never takes any time off, and is always working as requested on Tuesday's- much to his approval.

He sighs, "Yes Penny, I believe in other universes besides this one. Why?"

"Do you think in one universe you and I were ever together?"

He blinks surprised by her question and the teasing sparkle in her green eyes. "Of course, if it was ever a possibility then Im sure in some universe we are happily married and in another it met its catastrophic end- similar to yours and Leonards in this one incase you needed clarification on what kind of end I was referring too.

She stuck her tongue out at him, and shook her head, sticking a pair of jeans slowly into the laundry basket.

"I wonder whats worse, a catastrophic end, or an opportunity that never happened." She doesnt give him the opportunity to answer before she's out the door with a small smile and a goodnight, Sheldon.

.

He vaguely wonders if she loves him in the way he's suppose to love Amy. In the way, she proclaimed to love Kurt- all those years ago. She wonders if she loves him in the marriage kind of way. And he already knows- that even if he has the opportunity to ask her- he wont. He may be able to live with a no, but the yes, that would undoubtedly take him with her.

.

She comes out of surgury, and it does not look good- Wyatt tells them. They go down for lunch, though none of them our hungry, and he takes the opportunity to sit by her side despite her sleeping form.

"You arent going to wake up are you?" He muses softly, his handing shaking as he brushes the blonde hair from her eyes. He places his head upon her chest and listens to the faint beating of her heart-

Its the sign of her life that lulls him to sleep.

She wakes up not to long after that, in more pain than before and very, very tired. She stares towards Sheldon who is asleep against her chest and is so comfortable with his familiarity, she cant help but reach out and run fingers through his short dark hair.

"Hey moonpie." she croaks out, and he shifts blurry eyes up at her.

"Penny." he says softly, his eyes darting to the door unsure of who he should alert. A doctor? Her father? Penny doesnt allow him to make a decision however pressing her pointer finger weakly against his lips.

"I need to talk to you." she whispers eyes scared and wide. "Do you believe in god?"

And he sees her eyes begging for his approval just as they have so many times before. He bites his lower lip and says "I really dont know Penny."

She nods her head weakly, tears blurring her eyes.

"Im dying Sheldon." her voice is so broken, he can feel himself unraveling at the sound of it.

Soft Kitty...Warm Kitty...Little ball of fur...Happy Kitty...Sleepy Kitty...Purr...purr...purr..

.

He loses her three days later, two days before his birthday. He thinks its funny how accurate she was about her length of time. While the doctors whispered comforting lies along side her friends. Penny would tell him when the others were gone, in the few moments of solitude, no matter how brief- she would tell him she couldnt do this much longer and he would tell her it was okay, even though, by no stretch of imagination was it, and would it have ever been okay.

"I wont make it to your birthday." she whispers, its their last conversation together.

"Its okay." he assures, though the though sends his heart shriviling in his chest.

"Sheldon." She says softly, her eyes looking worse than he's ever seen them. The medicine is doing nothing for her now, no matter how much they pump her with. She keeps withering away.

"Im glad..." she continues closing her eyes. "That we atleast have this."

He presses his forehead to hers and closes his eyes as he wills the tears not to fall.

"Me too."

.

Twenty eight years to late, Sheldon Lee Cooper finds a soul that he thought was worth saving.

.


End file.
